Boldly Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Silence

Jason McCulloch's spread was a rambling one-hundred and fifty acre plot of good grazing land with a stream running crookedly across it. The best kind of land that could be gotten in the area. Only seventy-five head of cattle so far, but it was good for a man only twenty-two years old. In spite of his success, however, he was still in debt and struggling to scrape together the money. In another five years, if the weather was favorable and the herd continued to increase and if the losses were small... he would be able to do it. But... as he turned into the little clearing where his simple log cabin stood, he reached into his saddlebag and felt the leather sack of stolen goods. There was a lot of money in that bag. Money that could be used to pay off his land.

"Howdy, Jason!" A brawny, loose-boned man, about fifty years old, and possessing of a long brown mustache stood leaning casually against the paddock fence when Jason reined his horse in and dismounted. "How was the trip?"

"Too long, Hank. Shouldn't a' been gone so long," Jason answered grimly as he unloaded the saddlebags.

"I'll untack 'im fer ya," Hank offered. Without a word, Jason nodded and handed the reins over. "Twas only four days," Hank added, looking sideways at his young friend. "Ya've been gone on cattle drives fer five an' six months at a time an' never said nothin' about bein' gone too long." He shook his head. "What's wrong, Jason?"

"Who said anythin' was wrong?" Jason answered stiffly as he turned back to the cabin. Once inside, with the door safely shut, he wasted no time in pouring the leather bag out onto the rough wooden table. At least twenty golden dollars and about that same amount of silver. Any number of paper bills and... his blood suddenly ran cold as he pushed the coins away and lifted the shining silver locket from the pile. As he turned it in his hand, the sunlight filtering through the window illuminated the words engraved on it. Words he couldn't understand... "Gu dàna." But the thistle he understood. The ancient symbol of Scotland. That much he knew. His own family had come from Scotland just over a hundred years ago. So this mystery girl with the green eyes and fiery hair was from Scotland also.

Feeling almost as if he was committing sacrilege, he pressed the clasp at the side of the locket and it sprang open. There were three pictures inside... a young woman almost the very image of the girl he had met on the train, a man, probably about ten, fifteen years older than the woman, with a rather large and bushy beard. The third picture was another man, a much younger man. The first two, he guessed, must be her parents. And the third? A brother perhaps?

He set the locket to the side, noticing then the tiny silver pin. It was also the girl's. Shaped like a sword with the same motto on it. And... a Bible? How had it gotten in there? Funny that Slade hadn't just thrown it out. Slade had a strong aversion to anything "religious". Jason opened it slowly, reverently. He hadn't opened a Bible in years... although Hank's lay always on the little table in the corner of the cabin's main room. He had just convinced himself that he had no time for reading. But years had not erased the memories from his mind of the reverence his father had held for this Book.

The first page was an inscription in careful, curving script... with the same words on it. "Gu dàna". It was her Bible. He suddenly saw the scene again... so vividly... as if it was happening all over again. That stubborn lift of her chin, the courage flickering in those green eyes.

"Your valuables, Miss," he had said. And so she had given him all she considered valuable. Including her Bible.

He paged slowly through the genealogy pages. It went through at least three generations. He stopped to look at the last two entries... being the only two with recent dates.

"Birth: Lorna Jean McAllister, March 20, 1851"

"Betrothal: Lorna Jean McAllister to Robert James MacGregor, June 25, 1869"

The door opened suddenly and Hank entered, scraping the mud from his boots. As he hung up his battered Stetson, he turned toward the table, taking in the pile of money and jewelry at one glance. Jason made no effort to hide it... he knew Hank wouldn't ask questions. And he didn't. He simply turned toward the rickety old stove and added more wood to the dying embers.

"You're not going to say anything?" It was more of a statement than a question. But Jason suddenly desperately wanted Hank to say something... anything at all. Hank turned back toward him, slowly.

"We've been friends a long time," he said evenly. "I've known ya ever since ya was a little tyke. Ya've said I was like a father t'ya. If ye're in any trouble Jason, ya know ya can come to me. But I won't press it. Sometimes a man's just gotta work through his problems on his own." Taking the kettle of beans he had been soaking over night, he clapped the lid on and strained the water out through the open window. Jason slowly scraped the money into a pile and pushed it back into the bag. But the locket, the pin, and the Bible he set aside.

Although he stayed true to his promise not to press the matter, Hank Mulligan was troubled. When Jason had disappeared a few years back, he had stood by him, even when the rumors came that he was running with Slade's gang. When the news of the Carter bank robbery and murder swept the countryside and Jason had come home, frightened and troubled, Hank had kept his silence then too. But he had prayed for his boy. And he had believed Jason would pull through. He had gotten his inheritance... bought his ranch... started running cattle. But the debt was bad, the losses were high, and then the news came that Slade had returned to the Dakota Territories. Hank didn't even have to wonder. He knew what had happened.